Less food waste...

I know I'm not alone in sometimes letting foods sit in the fridge or the pantry until I forget about them, then being disappointed in myself for having to throw something out.  

Well, I have found a way to minimize this kind of waste.  I got the idea from Becoming a Farm Girl on Youtube.   I can't find the precise video at this point, but if you're into canning, preserving food, cooking... I encourage you to check out her videos.  

It's one of those ideas that when I heard it, I wondered why it hadn't occurred to me before.

Basically, the idea is to periodically go through the fridge, freezer(s) and pantry and pull out stuff I want to get eaten.  Stuff that's been in there long enough already, maybe stuff I've even been saying I want to cook, but am just not cooking.  The fridge stuff I gather and put in a container that fits in the fridge, the freezer stuff I just make sure it's in the kitchen refrigerator freezer, the pantry stuff I put in a plastic basket and put that on the counter where I'll see it.  And then I make a plan for using this stuff before it goes bad.  

I found an inexpensive plastic container (at Meijer, I believe) and I gave it prime real estate in the fridge:   

To be honest, some (well sealed) things can hang out in "must-go" container for weeks, but pretty regularly I take something out of the container for a meal.  Different food gets rotated into this container often, so its contents are ever changing. When a few days have gone by and I haven't pulled something out of it, I might take it out and sort through it just to remind myself what's in there.

Here's what's presently in the fridge must-go container:

Only recently did I go through the pantry doing the same thing.  I was kind of surprised to find a small basket's worth of stuff that has either expired, or is going to soon.

I don't overly worry about expiration dates - unless the contents smell or look bad when the can is opened, or a can is bulging, or an item is stale.  Of course, those would go straight into the trash.

This exercise can help me see what shopping habits I may need to rethink or change.  For example, I can readily see now that I tend to buy beans and don't get them used in a timely manner.  For what it's worth, there are more (newer) canned beans in the pantry, too.  I need to decide if I'm going to be more dedicated to eating beans, or stop buying them!

Having collected and taken an inventory of foods that have been hanging around too long, I now I make a plan to fix some dishes that will incorporate these things - starting with the oldest stuff.

Yesterday I mixed some mashed-up red kidney beans into some canned chili-dog sauce and used that over some hotdogs.   Hey - I don't claim everything I fix from this collection of items is going to be exactly healthy.  I'm just going to try to use things up before too long so nothing goes to waste.  Today I plan to make taco salad, and I think I will add some black beans to that.  Soon I will heat up some chili I froze a couple of weeks ago and will add some red kidney beans to it.   At the moment, I'm looking for some interesting recipes for the tofu as I've never actually cooked with it before.  I bought it in December or January and it has been sitting in the fridge intimidating me ever since.  

I plan for the pantry items to take a couple of weeks (or more) to use up - because I don't plan to eat only this stuff 'til it's gone - I have plans for other meals, too.  The perishables probably need to get gone within a week.  

Another thing I've done for years to keep food from going to waste is to label everything in the fridge.  The label must say what's in the container, and the date the food item was first placed in the fridge.  Sometimes something gets put in there without a label, but labeling everything is my goal - even if I plan to eat it the next day.  I have learned that when I forget to label a thing, it gets overlooked day after day until eventually it needs to be tossed.    

In the above picture of the fridge, there isn't a whole lot of food on the shelves, but when the shelves fill up, labels are invaluable.  When I open a package of cheese, I label what's left with the date the cheese was opened.  Leftovers are labeled and dated.  If a can is opened but I only need to use part of the contents, the rest gets put into an appropriate container and labeled and dated.  When jarred food can be left in the container it came in (like spaghetti sauce, pickles, olives...) I try to remember to write on the lid the date I opened it.

Since the problem (for me) of wasted food is usually that I simply forget about it (because it's often out-of-sight, out-of-mind), these actions keep the must-goes front and (almost) center so that every time I open the fridge I see the things I'm wanting to eat, or work into a recipe.  And I can see on the counter the pantry items I need to eat up (or just toss if necessary).   I can't say I don't still sometimes throw something away that's sat in the must-go container too long, but I've been doing this since last November and I've found it to be a huge game changer for me regarding food waste.

Once, again, if you like cooking, fermenting, preserving, and making the most of the food you buy (or grow) check out Becoming a Farm Girl - another favorite Youtuber of mine: